It has all the ingredients of a thriller movie and brings back memories of the beginnings of Covid. But the risk to the global population is low.

Moxidectin has proven effective for river blindness and elephantiasis. But there’s little financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in a drug whose target market is the very poorest people in the world.

Noma ‘is the quintessential neglected disease,’ striking mostly children under 6 in several African countries. There has been very little research on it.

Funding for the U.S. aid program has dropped about 30%. As one expert put it, ‘We're building up problems for the future.’

The result is fragmentation, which can slow the response to outbreaks. The good news is that many countries are making progress to create national health agencies.

Some countries have backup systems to keep medicines flowing. Others do not.

Under the Geneva Conventions, deliberately attacking civilian water systems (which is being actively threatened by American and Iranian leaders) can constitute a war crime.

Persian Gulf countries are crucial transit hubs for pharmaceuticals, and drugs that need to be kept cold and have a short shelf life – including some cancer therapies – are vulnerable to shipping delays.

The battle for attention of the masses has moved from press conferences and government PSAs to TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms. Public health agencies need to step up their 'creator' game.

Scientists don’t yet fully understand how GLP-1 drugs affect the brain’s reward pathways, but there are promising signals about how they control cravings.